With the launch of the Lexus LFA and Toyota GT 86, Toyota seems to be back in the sports car game. And now the Japanese auto giant is proving its cars are more than just fun-to-drive and shiny sheetmetal, with each car winning its respective class at this weekend’s Nurburgring 24 Hour Race.

Partnered with Gazoo Racing, this is hardly the Lexus LFA’s first trip round the Green Hell, though while several past efforts proved disastrous, the luxury marque appears committed to erasing any memories by amassing trophies. Competing in the SP8 Class, the Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA topped the podium and finished an impressive 15th overall.

As for the Toyota GT 86 team, car No. 166 placed first in the SP3 class and 46th overall, with the second car placing sixth in class and 65th overall. In addition, another Toyota GT 86 from Toyota Swiss Racing managed a 78th place finish and first overall in the V3 class for stock vehicles.

GALLERY: Toyota GT 86 & Lexus LFA Nurburging 24 Photos

We were well aware that Gazoo Racing was working on a pair of Toyota GT 86 race cars and a Lexus LFA for the upcoming Nürburgring 24 Hours race, and now Toyota Swiss Racing Team will be joining it with another pair.

The race takes place this weekend starting on May 17, held at the infamous track that played an important role in the development of both Toyota models. Gazoo Racing’s LFA will compete in the SP8 class while the two GT 86s will participate in the SP3 class. Toyota employees from the Japanese automaker will be part of the team personnel in order to gain further data on both models to bring feedback directly into future models.

“The momentum of our team is very good. Our target for the 24 Hours Nürburgring race is to maintain a steady pace, in line with the way we have chosen to set up the vehicles. Nevertheless, we have run at good speed and confident we will be full ready before the 24-hour event,” Gazoo Racing driver Akira Iida recently said after the team’s most recent race.

The Toyota Swiss Racing Team GT 86s will be competing in the V3 competition class for production models. The team’s participation is part of Toyota Switzerland’s grassroots motorsport program with the GT 86 to help encourage a new generation of racing and sports car enthusiasts.

Lexus apparently loaned an LFA supercar to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk for a few days, but after seeing the shenanigans that Hawk does with the rare Lexus, they may reconsider sending him another loaner vehicle.

Hawk must have had a lot of confidence in his stunt, since the LFA costs a whopping $375,000. Luckily he doesn’t ding it up. Hawk now joins an exclusive club of athletes (usually basketball players) that have jumped over a vehicle, rubbing elbows with the likes of Blake Griffin and Kobe Bryant.

Watch the video below.

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You probably know what it means to play “chicken,” but the risks associated with the reckless schoolyard game take a more serious tone when cars are involved. That said, it’s a blast to watch. 

Hopefully no one that’s reading this has ever participated in such a game, but it appears that Lexus wanted to pit its newly-redesigned Lexus GS 350 against its LFA supercar in a friendly game of chicken. The outcome is not what you’d expect it to be, considering the commercial is supposed to help sell the GS 350 in China, but it does show off the new sedan’s Lexus Dynamic Handling (LDH) feature.

We think it would have been better if the LFA flinched first, proving that the GS 350 won’t back down from anything. But we can sympathize with the GS 350 driver too, we would hardly want to smash into a $375,000 supercar, or anything else for that matter.

Watch the video after the break.

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Toyota is extremely proud of its new GT 86, and out in Japan, its motorsports partner Gazoo Racing has built a pair of GT 86s to compete in the famous Nürburgring 24 Hours race.

The race will take place from May 17th to the 20th and Gazoo Racing will also be fielding a Lexus LFA in the competition. Before one of the GT 86s compete in the Nürburgring race, however, it will make its way to the Japanese Rally Championship. Both custom Gazoo Racing Toyota GT 86s will be on display at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK from June 29th to July 1st.

It appears that the GT 86s will have around 200-hp and will be equipped with a six-speed manual for the race. We’re excited to see how well it does during the grueling endurance classic.

Watch a video of the Gazoo Racing Toyota GT 86 below

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With the advent of hybrids and electric vehicles, many skeptics thought the age of high-performance sports car would die out. Reality couldn’t be any more different, as America has more than 70 cars on sale today that make 500-hp or more.

The number of vehicles pushing out 500-hp or more has nearly doubled in the last five years. What is more remarkable is more than a decade ago, there were just two vehicles in the club: the Ferrari 575M and the Lamborghini Murcielago. Now Ferrari alone has four models pushing out over 500-hp.

The ability to pump out so much horsepower has been aided by the leaps and bounds that engineering and technology has made over the last decade. Automakers are now able to equip their vehicles with smaller, more fuel efficient engines, which thanks to forced induction, can reliably crank out plenty of peak horsepower.

[Source: Autoweek]

Currently there are 18 manufacturers selling vehicles with more than 500-hp in the United States. And while the semi-exclusive club used to be reserved by German contributors such as Mercedes-Benz‘s AMG performance division and BMW‘s M vehicles, both American and Japanese companies have joined in over the recent years with contributions.

Chevrolet for example has its new Camaro ZL1 to go along with its famed Corvettes, while rival Ford is pushing out its 650-hp Shelby GT500. Japan on the other hand, only has its Nissan GT-R and the more recent Lexus LFA as part of the club.

The big question is whether or not automakers will hit a horsepower ceiling, or if bragging rights will continue to make performance vehicles push the limits on reasonable horsepower.

“Everyone is wondering where this is going,” said Filip Brabec, head of product planning for Audi of America. “If you project the trend, will we drive 1,000-hp cars in 10 years? It is about what the technology can allow you to do for thrill and performance, and it’s about refinement as well. Who knows, we could take that performance down into a lower segment one of these days.”

Check out the full list of cars sold in the U.S. with 500-hp or more below.

+500 Horsepower Cars on sale in the U.S.A

Aston Martin

DBS coupe & convertible (510 hp)

V-12 Vantage (510 hp)

Audi

R8 V-10 (525 hp)

A8 6 W-12 (500 hp)

R8 coupe & spyder (525 hp)

R8 GT coupe & spyder (560 hp)

2013 S8 (520 hp) (summer launch)

Bentley

Continental GT, GTC, Flying Spur (567 hp)

Continental Flying Spur Speed (600 hp)

Continental Supersports convertible (621 hp)

Continental Supersports IRS convertible (631 hp)

Mulsanne (505 hp)

2013 GT and GTC (500 hp) (new V-8)

BMW

Alpina B7 (500 hp)

2013 M5 coupe & convertible (560 hp) (summer launch)

X5 M (555 hp)

X6 M (555 hp)

M6 coupe & convertible (560 hp)

760Li (535 hp)

Cadillac

CTS-V sedan, wagon, coupe (556 hp)

Chevrolet

Camaro ZL1 (580 hp)

Corvette Z06 (505 hp)

Corvette ZR1 (638 hp)

Ferrari

458 Italia (558 hp)

458 Spider (558 hp)

FF (651 hp)

F12 Berlinetta (740 hp)

Ford

2012 Mustang Shelby GT500 coupe & convertible (550 hp)

2013 Mustang Shelby GT500 coupe & convertible (650 hp)

Jaguar

XFR (510 hp)

XKR coupe & convertible (510 hp)

Jaguar XKR-S coupe & convertible (550 hp)

Lamborghini

Aventador (700 hp)

Gallardo (553-562 hp)

Land Rover

Range Rover Sport Supercharged (510 hp)

Range Rover Supercharged (510 hp)

Lexus

LFA (552 hp)

McLaren

MP4-12C (592 hp)

Maybach

57 and 62 (543 hp)

57S and 62S (620 hp)

Mercedes-Benz

C63 AMG Black Series (510 hp)

CL600 (510 hp)

CL63 AMG (536 hp)

CL65 AMG (621 hp)

CLS63 AMG (518 hp)

E63 AMG (518 hp)

E63 AMG wagon (518 hp)

ML63 AMG (518 hp)

G55 AMG (500 hp)

SLS AMG coupe (563 hp)

SLS AMG roadster (563 hp)

S600 (510 hp)

S63 AMG (536 hp)

S65 AMG (621 hp)

2013 SL63 (530 hp) (July launch)

2013 SL65 AMG (612 hp) (fall launch)

Nissan

GT-R (545 hp)

Porsche

Porsche Panamera Turbo (500 hp)

Panamera Turbo S (550 hp)

911 Turbo S (530 hp)

Cayenne Turbo (500 hp)

Rolls-Royce

Ghost (563 hp)

Toyota will be sporting some nice hardware at this years Goodwood Festival of Speed, debuting the TS030 hybrid Le Mans car, the Dynojet Racing-prepared Toyota Avensis and Gazoo Racing LFA and GT86. 

The Festival of Speed, as the name suggests, celebrates racing heritage and fast cars, both of which Toyota has to offer.

Toyota Racing driver Anthony Davidson is set to show off the TS030 hybrid racer on the famous hill course at Goodwood. The Dynojet Toyota Avensis will take some laps with BTCC driver Frank Wrathall behind the wheel. Wrathall raced to four podium finishes in his rookie season piloting the Aventis, and perfectly fits the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s chosen theme for 2012, “Young Guns – Born To Win.”  The Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA and GT86 will be on hand for festival goers to appreciate and drool over.

To coincide with the cars release, Toyota will also display regular road going GT86′s to the public to drum up some hype and hopefully sales around the cars official UK release date.

We expect more announcements from Toyota in the coming weeks about additions to its Festival of Speed cars, as well as its famous faces.

Click back to AutoGuide for updates.

After driving an F1 car in competition, it would be hard not to have an unrealistic set of expectations for any car after that. So you would think that an F1 driver could never sit in a production car and still become enthralled with its performance capabilities. Well, according to Alex Wurz, the former F1 driver, the Lexus LFA is a rocket ship he would take home any day of the week.

Lexus is still eager to prove that it is fully capable of producing a super sports car that can perform with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. And with the LFA still sitting in the fifth position for fastest laptime around the famed Nürburgring, above both Lamborghini and Ferrari, the car has shown the world its true potential.

Watch the video below of Toyota Racing’s Alexander Wurz take the LFA out for some hot laps on the Estoril circuit in Portugal. Its interesting to listen to his take on the car, and how it handles.

Alex calls the car a “rocket ship”, and by the looks of the LFA in the video, we wouldn’t disagree.

GALLERY: Lexus LFA Nurburgring Edition

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Whether you’re heading to the Chicago Auto Show and want to know what to check out, or your trip is a bit more virtual, AutoGuide editors have compiled a list of the must-sees at this year’s event.

Head into McCormick Place and hang a left. You can’t miss the all-new 2012 Porsche 911. It might not be a world premiere, or even a North American debut, but the beautifully blue Carrera S is a piece of art. Four inches longer than the outgoing model it’s more substantial and a much sleeker design.

Powered by a 400 hp 3.8-liter flat-six engine the Carrera S can hit 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds when paired with Porsche’s PDK 7-speed dual-clutch transmission and the optional Sport Chrono Package. It’ll also lap the Nurburgring as fast as the previous generation GT3!

The one percent is doing just fine in the Midwest. At least that’s what you’d be lead to believe if you dropped by the Lexus stand at the Chicago Auto Show.

There you’ll find a stunning display of not one, not two, not three, but four Lexus LFA supercars. Priced at an exorbitant $375,000 (each), you’re looking at $1.5 million dollars in total. Is that a ton of cash? You bet! But if you look at it another way, it’s also 40 cylinders, generating 2,208 hp.

For more on the Chicago Auto Show, see our complete coverage page here.

GALLERY: Lexus LFA Collection

As popular as drifting has become in America, the sport’s home will forever be in Japan and a quick demo out at the 2012 Tokyo Auto Salon gave us a reminder why.

While we have plenty of fun listening to V8-powered Ford Mustangs and Chevy Camaros go at it sideways, this year’s TAS played host to a Toyota GT 86 doing tandem with an old school AE86, only to be outdone by a Lexus LFA Roadster.

And as cool as it was to see the new Toyota GT 86 going sideways alongside its classic predecessor, what’s even more interesting is the fact that the LFA Roadster isn’t even supposed to go on sale until 2014, so how did someone get their hands on one? Either it’s a pre-production model or someone decided to chop the roof on theirs themselves. But leave it to D1 to put on yet another demo to whet everyone’s appetite for drifting, despite how controversial the series is out in Japan.

Check out the video after the break with various cars putting on a drifting demo.

[Source: Jalopnik]

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Toyota’s motorsports partner Gazoo Racing had several machines to show off at the Tokyo Auto Salon, but none as impressive as this Lexus LFA. Prepped for race duty, the car has already seen competition, with an automotive CEO behind the wheel no less.

Akio Toyoda? Nope. Try Dr. Ulrich Bez, the man in charge of Aston Martin and a long time racer.

How exactly the CEO of a competing automaker wound up behind the wheel of the Lexus supercar is the result of a friendship that has grown between Dr. Bez and Mr. Toyoda – a friendship that started when the two shared garage space at the Nurbrgring 24 Hour endurance race a few years back.

The two automakers have volunteered to share space ever since and this past year even shared cars, with Bez getting behind the wheel of the LFA, while Akio Toyoda had the opportunity to pilot Aston Martin’s Zagato V12 race car.

GALLERY: Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA